Transcript

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>> We won't be knocked off course.>> We have to close the deal.>> As the 2016 race tightens, new voting restrictions such as fewer polling sites and reduced early voting could make all the difference in states such as North Carolina, where Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are neck and neck.

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Political correspondent, Julia Hart.>> North Carolina has become one of the key battleground states in this year's tightly contested presidential election. But, even before things got that close between Trump and Clinton, there was a fierce partisan battle. Republicans were trying to restrict the number and hours at the polling sites that would be open during this early voting period.

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They said that, it put an unfair burden on poll workers to have to come in on Sundays. Democrats by contrast said that, Sundays were an important day for voters such as churchgoers, Black churchgoers. And at this point, with the raise as tight as it is, it's looking like those early voting opportunities may actually make quite a difference in the outcome of the race in North Carolina.

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>> For example, take Democratic leaning Guilford County. The county reduced the number of places to vote during the first week of early voting from 16 to 1. So this year, only about 3,000 people voted there in the first days of early voting compared to more than 21,000 in 2012.

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>> Democrats actually sued to try to get more early voting opportunities in five key counties in the state and they were rejected.>> In 2012, Mitt Romney took North Carolina, but four years earlier Barack Obama won the state. And it is widely viewed as within reach for democrats if they can turn out enough of their base.

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Clinton will be campaigning in North Carolina Thursday to push voters to hit the polls early.